


Mirrors

by talefeathers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6788617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s hard about mirrors… it isn’t that we looked alike.  That’s what everyone thinks, but that’s not it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirrors

“What’s hard about mirrors… it isn’t that we looked alike. That’s what everyone thinks, but that’s not it.”

Percy almost started when George began speaking. His younger brother had done his best, at first, to seem all right, but he’d gone much quieter since noticing how many of his sentences now went unfinished. And even when he had been speaking, it had never been about what had happened, and it had certainly never been to Percy. He couldn’t imagine why George would choose to open up to him of all people; God knew he didn’t deserve it. But he would let him. He gently closed the book he’d been reading over his breakfast and looked up to where George was seated atop a bare spot of kitchen counter, steaming mug of tea in hand.

“I mean, we were separate people, after all,” George continued with a dim smile. “Just because nobody else could tell us apart doesn’t mean that we couldn’t. So it’s not that I see Fred when I look at my reflection, it’s that…”

He stopped and stared into his mug for a moment, jaw tightening.

“It’s that I don’t.”

He paused again, but just as Percy was beginning to wonder if he was waiting for a response, he continued.

“He’s not – he’s not brushing his teeth beside me in the morning, you know? Or – or walking with me past all the windows in Diagon Alley on the way to open up the shop. There’s just this gap in my reflection where he always was.”

He sniffed and scrubbed at his eyes with one of his sweater sleeves. Then he laughed, brittle and watery.

“I wish it were the other thing, you know?” he said. “I _want_ to see him. But it’s not, he’s just –”

He leaned his head back against the cabinet behind him, squeezing his eyes shut as tears slid down his cheeks.

“He’s just gone.”

Percy’s heart pounded in his throat. He wasn’t the person who was supposed to be hearing this, he thought. He was the one who had been with Fred; he was the one who had failed to protect him. What solace could he possibly offer after that?

Still, he stood. He crossed the room to his brother just as George was setting his mug aside, was dropping to his feet from the counter, was pulling Percy into a bone-crushing embrace and sobbing into his shoulder.

Because now, he figured, was as good a time as any to start being the kind of brother he always should have been.


End file.
